“Hello, Amy, can you hear me?”
“Um…yes?”
“That’s good. My name is George,
and I’m here to help you. Are you comfortable right now? Is my voice too loud
or too soft, for instance?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m . . . very
comfortable. In fact, I feel better than I can ever remember being in my life.”
“That’s good. That’s always our intention,
but we don’t always get it right on the first try.”
“’What you mean, “we”, white man?’
Sorry, I need to learn to stop making that joke. Fewer people get it every
year, and some people take offense at it-especially people of color. Anyway,
who is ‘we’, please? You don’t look like hospital staff.”
“I’m not, but I am here to help. I
can show you how to make adjustments to be more comfortable, and try to answer
the questions you might want to ask.
“Oh, and by the way, I did get the
joke, and I didn’t take offense. Also: the King sits on gold. Who sits on
silver?”
“The Lone Ranger, of course.”
“You have a nice laugh, Amy.”
“You have a nice smile, George. Oh,
my, I’m flirting with you – I must be feeling better. But: please
tell me exactly what is going on here. Is this a room for some new therapy I
haven’t been getting before, or so I just not remember it?”
“From now on, you shouldn’t have
any trouble with memory. For instance: what did you have to drink while you
read the first chapter of Mission of Gravity?”
“Peppermint tea – it was the only
tea left in the house. Wow, I was fourteen years old on June 5th,
1967!”
“There, your memory is intact.
Everything’s fine.”
“So I’m in Heaven?”
“We don’t use that name, because it
comes with some associations that aren’t helpful. But it isn’t Hell, either, so
don’t-“
“Grandma? Sorry to wake you, but I
brought the kids, and we can only stay for a little while.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Meesha. I
was having a nice dream, but it’s one I’ve had a couple of times already.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I feel fine, but
they warned me about that. If I hadn’t read up on it, I wouldn’t know: when you
get right to the end, you have a baseless feeling of well-being. A lot of
people become convinced they’re getting better, which can be really hard on the
people trying to help them at the end, when they start babbling about all the
things they’re about to start doing.”
“Are you at the end, Gran Amy?”
“Yes, Hali, it’s almost over, but that’s
okay. It’s the end for me, but I’ve lived longer than most, and I’ve had the
good fortune and the good sense to enjoy more than most, and I have this lovely
feeling of well-being to help me at the finish. Also, I get to see you. That’s
good. You’re going to live long after I’m done.”
“Are you going to go to Heaven and
meet the angels?”
“It’s a pretty thought. Probably
not, but I’m okay with that.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46701/questions-about-angels
The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être; tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée."
